Week 52: Hero – Danny Boyle

This is a post by Jackie South which was originally posted on 30 December 2012 but which was lost from the site during our recent difficulties. Unfortunately any comments on the post have been lost.

This week, our editorial panel has chosen Danny Boyle as its greatest hero of the last seven days.

Film director Danny Boyle deserves many accolades for his superlative direction of the Olympics opening ceremony. Â It did, after all, do more to define this nation than any other single event of my lifetime, spelling out clearly why loving Britain and being progressive are not contradictory emotions but are in fact one and the same. For this, we have already awarded him one of our hero awards this year.

This brilliant show piece has won him plaudits all round (with a few fringe exceptions). For doing such an amazing job, he was rightly offered a knighthood in this year’s honours. But as justified as this offer was, we salute his decision to turn it down. Boyle may now be feted by the great and the good, but he has not forgotten his roots or the values he was brought up with. I’m not going to criticise those that accept honours – people’s reasons to do so are varied and are often to honour those that worked with them as much as to take personal credit.

However, Boyle’s refusal to take a knighthood show that he recognises that this was a blatant attempt by government to reflect itself in his success, to glean itself some unwarranted kudos by basking in his glory. Boyle has punctured those Coalition delusions. A government that stands opposed to all his ceremony sought to celebrate, and to his core beliefs, should not get to associate itself with this vision of Britain in exchange for a gong. So we salute Boyle’s decision to refuse a knighthood. Â Arise honest, decent, normal bloke Danny Boyle.